Plot Synopsis

We are now firmly in the downward path towards the end of one of the most successful anime series of all time: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Mind you, the downward path towards the end means that the action is much reduced and there is a lot more background story filler going into building towards the final climax of the series. Neon Genesis Evangelion Collection 0:7 comprises:

Episode 21 - The Birth Of NERV:

The assistant director of NERV has been kidnapped and the suspicion falls upon Kaji. Turns out that he was not necessarily responsible but it does mean that Misato ends up being implicated too. The episode really provides a whole heap of back story for some central characters of the series, including Gendo Ikari and Rei Ayanami, all thanks to SEELE interrogating NERV personnel in search of the true agenda of Gendo Ikari. It is amazing the effect that the emergence of an independent EVA 01 has had on SEELE.

Episode 22 - At Least Be Humane:

As the funk that has engulfed Asuka continues and her ability to control EVA 02 is falling faster than governments in Italy, NERV finds itself with a bit of a problem. SEELE might have authorised the building of a bunch more EVAs but right now the available stocks are very reduced as EVA 01 is in cryostasis due to recent events. So EVA 00 and EVA 02 are it - and with Asuka having difficulties the effective team is one. So naturally, it is the best time for the Fifteenth Angel to appear, but this is a new type of Angel, for it stays in orbit and attacks with a strong psychic weapon. Asuka immediately is in strife as the Angel slowly destroys her mind, but Rei produces a Herculean effort to destroy the Angel and save Asuka - sort of.

Episode 23 - Tear:

There is no consoling Asuka as she descends into a major funk of hating everything and everybody, but the Angels show no mercy and the Sixteenth Angel arrives to inflict further damage upon the situation. Since Asuka cannot even get any motion out of EVA 02, Misato is forced to launch Rei in EVA 00 to tackle this most dangerous Angel, and it is dangerous and soon has Rei in deep trouble, trouble that is not alleviated by the completely incapable Asuka. Ikari is forced to take EVA 01 out of cryostasis and launch Shinji into the fray, to no avail, I might add. With no hope, Rei does the virtually unthinkable and makes the ultimate sacrifice to save Shinji. Or does she? And what is this about Tokyo-3 being destroyed?

Transfer Quality

Video

The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format and is not 16x9 enhanced.

After a sequence of improving transfers, there is a very slight drop in quality here as there is just a hint that the solidity has dropped just a bit. Nothing really serious though, and the few instances where the black line detail could perhaps have been a bit more solid would hardly be called distracting. Detail remains about as good as you can expect from this sort of source material. Shadow detail is obviously a non-issue in this animation. There was nothing in the way of serious grain in the transfer and this results in a generally very clear looking transfer. There did not appear to be any low level noise issues at all.

The quality of the colours remain high here with some nice, steady, well-saturated and reasonably vibrant colours. There was nothing in the way of oversaturation here at all, but there seemed to be a few instances of colour bleed here. It is nothing really extreme but just a tad distracting once you notice it. A good example is at 11:15 in Episode 22. The colour looks good and true to the original content.

There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. Film-to-video artefacts are pretty much confined to some minor aliasing here and there, which is hardly any sort of distraction at all, and the obligatory minor telecine wobble that continues to plague the series. There are no really noticeable film artefacts in the transfer.

Each episode on the DVD has the original Japanese credits with the English credits all being shown after the end of Episode 23. Mind you, if you want a definition of sloppy, this DVD provides it. At the end of Episode 21 it says the English credits appear after Episode 22, at the end of Episode 22 it says English credits follow the Japanese credits, at the end of Episode 23 it says the English credits appear after the non-existent Episode 24. Can you say "oops"?

The English subtitles are the usual wayward efforts that we have come to expect with these releases. They might do a decent job of translating the Japanese dialogue (even though I cannot vouch for this implicitly), but when compared to the more relaxed English dub, they are often not within a reasonable degree of accuracy. No big deal of course unless you are in the habit of listening to the English dub with subtitles on. They also appear to have a shadow to them which sort of blurs them a bit, just impinging upon their legibility.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness

Shadow Detail

Colour

Grain/Pixelization

Film-To-Video Artefacts

Film Artefacts

Overall

Audio

There are two soundtracks on the DVD, being the original Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and a dubbed English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. I listened predominantly to the English soundtrack, and sampled the Japanese soundtrack.

The dialogue was clear and easy to understand throughout the episodes, whichever soundtrack you listen to. Naturally, since we are talking about animation, the usual sync issues are on display. Naturally, the English dub has a slightly more noticeable sync problem than the original Japanese soundtrack.

The original music for the series comes from Shiroh Sagisu, and continues in the fairly ordinary mode.

Both soundtracks are perfectly acceptable efforts, free of any apparent distortions or problems. The sound is quite open and does not have any indication of congestion. The front surround channels are reasonably well used to give some decent presence to the sound but as usual there is nothing out of the rear channels at all. The bass channel does not get any work here at all. Really, the soundtracks are now a model of consistency.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue

Audio Sync

Clicks/Pops/Dropouts

Surround Channel Use

Subwoofer

Overall

Extras

Another consistent, albeit completely inadequate, extras package.

Menu

Actually, these are starting to grow on me for some reason, but they really aren't that special. There is some audio and animation but that is the extent of the enhancement here.

Biographies - Characters

Going by the title of MAGI Data Files, this is actually just five rather shortish pages of text on the characters Angel #15 Arael, Angel #16 Armisael, Naoko Akagi, Shigure and Yui Ikari. If I might suggest something: select Shigure and just leave it on-screen a little while. After a short time, you will get an Easter Egg of sorts - namely a brief video of a quite attractive Japanese girl in her underwear/bikini. There is a second such interruption but it is very unclear and dark.

Trailers (5)

The obligatory collection of promotional trailers for other anime titles both available and coming soon. The package this time offers Bubblegum Crisis 2040, Sin - The Movie, Martian Successor Nadesico, Spriggan and Gasaraki. All are presented in a Full Frame format apart from Spriggan, which is in an approximate aspect ratio of 1.78:1. They uniformly come with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound and are not 16x9 enhanced. There is no time information encoded in the trailers, which is annoying, as is the fact that they are mastered in a looping manner. The technical quality is good enough although all suffer somewhat from grain and Gasaraki suffers somewhat from aliasing, especially in the closing titles. If this sounds familiar, it should - they have been virtually identical now for three straight DVDs.

Notes - DVD Credits

A single page of text to let us know who was responsible for the DVD.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view
non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually
also NTSC compatible.

As far as we can ascertain the only difference between the Region 1 and Region 4 releases is some additional soundtrack options on the Region 1 release.

Summary

Neon Genesis Evangelion Collection 0:7 contains predominantly background stories and thus is very different to the earlier collections in the series. The DVD has been given another quite good transfer across the board, if just slightly less good than the previous three collections. I would suggest that this would still prove to be a tad problematic on a very large screen again, and on the whole not a good place to start looking at the series!